THE GRAPES OF WRATH

 I am visiting South Africa with my daughter and staying with the in-laws. It's alright, but there is no unlimited wifi in Granny’s house. Johannesburg is a big cosmopolitan city, every suburb is kilometers from another one, and having a car makes getting around pretty easy. I went to visit my friend who teaches in a high school nearby. I visited her and asked if she had any books for me to read to kill time. I picked two books, one of which was a book by an author named John Steinbeck. It looked quite worn out and old, and I assumed it was perhaps written by one of the local South African authors. 

It had been over a decade since I read a big fiction novel. The story takes place in the United States in the 1930s. I found the book extremely descriptive. The first hundred pages describe the situation of the Joad family on their farm and home. Tom Joad, who had served in prison, is released, and he comes to his hometown and finds that his family is forced to leave their home and their land, due to poor weather conditions. It showed the feeling of loss, uncertainty, sorrow, and hope for the future. Tom Joad later becomes a favourite character in the story.

I loved how the story described their situation and the road trip to California. They had hopes and dreams to find a better home and better jobs. They meet several different people on their road trip. And it all describes the situation in the States with other people struggling to make a living. They finally reach California, and their expectations are shattered. It was shocking to see how the family struggled to find work, and how difficult it was for Ma Joad to buy bread, coffee, or sugar and put food on the table every day. Ma Joad's role became more prominent once the family settled in California, and struggled day to day. 

Throughout the book, the Joad family and thousands of other Dust Bowl refugees face systemic cruelty in California. They are starved, underpaid, and treated with hostility by powerful landowners who want to keep wages low.

Steinbeck uses the metaphor of grapes growing heavy and fermenting to describe how individual misery transforms into a powerful, collective rage. In Chapter 25, he explicitly lays out this imagery:

"...and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."

At its core, the book is powered by its characters—particularly the resilient Ma Joad and the volatile, evolving Tom Joad. Through their eyes, Steinbeck transforms a massive historical crisis into an intimate family tragedy. The Joad's lose their home, their dignity, and family members along the way, yet they refuse to lose their humanity. It is significant how in the most difficult times the migrant families help each other. 

Steinbeck brilliantly alternates between descriptive chapters of the Joad's' specific journey and broader, journalistic chapters that describe the forces at play: corporate greed, the banking system, and the collective plight of thousands of displaced. 

What makes the book truly unforgettable is its transition from despair to defiance. The "wrath" of the title isn't just destructive anger; it is a righteous, unifying force. Steinbeck argues that when individuals look past their own survival and realize they are part of a larger human collective, they become impossible to defeat. This book really touched me, in one of the vulnerable stages of my life, and I am glad I came across this beautiful piece of literature.